Considering RPS’ communal adoration of James Cameron eighties action films, it’s perhaps surprising that we’ve done so little on third-person shooter Terminator: Salvation. Shooting robots… in the future. That’s our thing, surely? You give us a time machine and send us forward and we’d set upon the first robotic thing we’d see, just through our training-via-media. Anyway, maybe it’ll be good. Maybe it won’t. But one thing’s for sure – you’ll find footage of shootage beneath the cut.

Any thoughts? Fans of adding-trees-to-Fallout-3 will be pleased to see there is sufficient greenery for their purposes, at least.

Skynet and Future Shock are unsung classics of the doom/duke nukem era. Soaked in atmosphere, they were, like…like…some incredibly apt metaphor that escapes me for the moment.

Actually looks quite good, for a film tie-in. I’d like to hope that the buildings shown in the street scenes could be explored, a la Stalker’s Pripyat (and the games mentioned above), but I feel this might be too much for a film-to-game cash generator to worry about. above the usual ASPLODE! RATTTATATAT!!! Still, what’s there is…promising.

I also like that the trailer ends with the music cresendo-ing on some random street battle (instead of, say, the shot of the big robot) suggesting that the shots were put together entire randomly.

Also I like the big Terminators falling over in a stiff, stock animation like it’s 1995.

Also I hate that cod orchestral version of the Terminator theme. I could try and argue that’s it’s due to the original theme being designed around minimalist electronic instrumentation and a drone backing to emphasise the melancholy of the tune, so adding all the brassy farting just loses the theme’s impact. But mostly my reaction was that it sounded really naff.

This is the ‘sister’ game to Grin’s previous movie tie-in, Wanted: Weapons of Fate. Wanted was damn short (around the six hour mark), but perfect as a rental, as it was short, sweet and dumb. I expect this to be much the same. An appetizer before the main course, the excellent-looking Bionic Commando.

From the looks of it, they’re using Wanted’s best feature again – the clever cover-switching system, where by holding different movement directions at the edge of cover, it’ll show you where your next dodge will move you. Made for some nice cinematic gunfights, rolling and twisting between pieces of hard scenery.

Also I hate that cod orchestral version of the Terminator theme. I could try and argue that’s it’s due to the original theme being designed around minimalist electronic instrumentation and a drone backing to emphasise the melancholy of the tune, so adding all the brassy farting just loses the theme’s impact. But mostly my reaction was that it sounded really naff.

Wasn’t the Skynet machines in the original Terminator really really hard to kill with the resistence weaponry. So why do they feel like paper mache in this one and get blown up by a machine gun when in the original it took lots of damage or a big rocket launcher to kill one of them.

@Xercies
this is set before they developed arnie obv. to develop arnie they had to develop a bare bones terminator nearly as hard as him, which is where the kick ass terminators came from only after arnie where terminators hard to kill.

Beat me to it Beaver. Yep, thar be recycling… and serpents, no doubt. Bit cheap of Grin, even if those are some lovely animations that were probably the best part of Wanted for me (the knee-slide over cover was a personal favourite… mm, splinters..)

Wanted balanced excellent ideas against terrible ones, and committed some awful sins of design. But, it was entertaining.

Their way of doing quick time events (the slow motion shooting sections) was better than i’ve seen anywhere else, but it’s married against knife wielding enemies who you have to do a bit of quick time button mashing to defeat. A well introduced Sniper section (where you have to dodge his bullets for about 10 minutes before you wrench it off him and deal some vengeance on all his friends) against random placed turrets in French streets.

I wouldn’t level the length against it as a criticism, because I felt the length was perfectly pitched to the depth of gameplay. And it would make a great rental title.

Back on topic… Salvation looks like it introduces that Gears of War favourite, vehicle sections. Vehicle sections in PC games are marginally better than console because your aim is increased tenfold with a mouse, but goddamn they just plain suck. If the game features as much vehicular action as the trailer, it’s really gonna get on my nerves.

Looks like a fun game, but I remember the robots were way more terrifying in the terminator 1/2 “future war” segments. May be a fault with the new film rather than this game, but still. I want to be steeped in a gritty guerilla war against superior machines, using underhand, backdoor tactics like setting up ambushes, planting traps to take down robots, before slipping away into the darkness, and into underground bunkers.

*dreams*

ps, what did they DO to the terminator theme?!?! Possibly also a problem with the movie. Wow, I guess the movie is going to be a massive let down.

+1 to the Future Shock/Skynet praises. On of my fondest gaming memories…it’s good to see that they get some love in this thread :) Future Shock was under-appreciated, really groundbreaking game, Bethesda’s finest moment. True 3D environment, huge outdoor areas to explore. Driveable vehicles. (remember, this is pre-Quake / pre-Duke3d) Real missions, not just find keys/find exit gameplay. I believe it was the first fps with real mouselook, I remember wrestling with the controls for hours at first, until I got the hang of it (“How am i supposed to look up/down and turn with the mouse in a fps? And strafe/move with my left hand on the keyboard? These people are crazy!”).
The atmosphere was great, always at night, with the collapsed buildings, car wrecks etc. everywhere. Great terminator-styled music, the sounds of the burning debris, your footsteps in the dirt, and the whine of the robots’ servo motors, from the distance, as they were moving towards you. The sound of the wind, when you climbed on top of one of the ruined buildings, and looked over the lifeless, destroyed city…
Also the relatively slow pacing really added to the tension, and realism of the game. You were not a badass Doom-like superhero, running around, shooting everything with a rocket launcher.

God, I loved that game. I could talk about it for hours.
Sorry for my bad english.

I loved Future Shock and Skynet. Multiplayer was great. You could choose dawn or dusk for all the maps. It had the drivable vehicles from the SP sections, and you could choose to play as the Terminator who was slower but tougher, and had a red tinted hud.

While it’s conceivable that the game might be entertaining, if you’re a real fan of Cameron’s you’re probably instinctively ignoring the zombie-like raising (again) of a franchise that ended beautifully with its second movie.

1 – Everyone that has any ounce of Terminator appreciation, go get your hands on the Sarah Conner Chronicles, preferrably via methods that FOX can track, say iTunes/Netflix/whatnot, or HULU.com for the 2nd half of season 2. Perhaps that will convince them to not cancel it.

2 – Anyone remember the arcade T2 shooting game, where the controllers looked like UZI’s? That was ace.

3 – The Terminator mythos is great, but I’m still waiting for the popular entertainment version of the robot rebellion that’s more realistic, i.e. If there’s a robot designed to kill people, then you’re dead as soon as it’s physically possible to kill you 99.999% of the time. They won’t miss, they won’t have to get close, they won’t glare/growl menacingly and/or say something first, they probably won’t be humanoid, you won’t be able to stall by saying something clever. Most of the time you won’t even know they’re there, maybe have time for a “oh crap” before you’re dead.

“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. “